As low as the ground

My head was spinning, the air was quite warm yet the bus drive was a good one. I was sitting next to my good friend  and we were having our daily bus conversation. We usually talk about anything that comes to mind...classes, homework, boys, friends, the community etc.

I saw from the window to my left 2 men sitting on the dirt floor and a women on her dirty foldable chair. They were wearing work clothes, boots, bandanas, and hats. I automatically felt a rage cover me like a blanket.

One of the men was kneeling while he munched on his food after a hard day of labor, the other man sat on the dirt floor, and the women on her foldable chair. They all ate their food and talked on the dirt floor, outside, while the dirt wind was hitting their faces and their food. There were no faucets with clean water around, no chairs, no benches, no sanitation, no rights...

The dirt was their support. They seemed so low on the floor as I looked down at them. They were tired. They cannot complain. They speak and deported they will be. Stripped from their human rights in broad daylight what joy it is...To see your own people eating on the dirt fields, to see the injustice and the oppression....to see them as low as the ground goes.

Compassion Project

Today I would like you to ask yourself when if ever where you sat down and taught how to be compassionate?

Exactly...Now my question to you is how do you practice something you have never learned? How do you become good at it?
I am not sure I can answer this for you but I'll give you a head start.

The truth is in order to show compassion and/or to be compassionate you really have to think about it. Yes, you have to think about it.

Try to recall a moment in which you were not at the center of?

"Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real." - David Foster Wallace

You see our natural default is to fall back on our feelings and how they are the most important in the world.

Think about school for instance.  You are walking into your classroom and you have to take a test for AP Economics, or Chemistry or Calculus and you are stressed out and confused and you are mad at your parents and siblings, because they did not turn off the television when you asked them to last night so you could not prepare for the test properly so you are tired and confused. And you are wondering how this subject is ever going to help you in life and you hate everyone around you. And then you have to sit on a dirty tagged up desk and a seat that makes you butt ache. Then you walk out to the hall and in front of you is a person walking as slow as a turtle and I mean it is not like you have to go to your next class right? And what about the stupid people to your right talking about how wasted they got the other day and who they had sex with. And you're angry and frustrated, because you have to get to your next class.  And the boy next to you is speaking spanish and you are irritated and all you want to do is punch someone. The noise level is so loud and all you want to do is drown everybody out and then someone bumps you with their backpack and they say sorry in the most fake voice ever and you glare at them with a glare of death...and then there is the girl laughing hysterically with all her friends and you are wondering what the hell is funny? because to you nothing is funny at the moment. And you are thinking about the crowded hall and you are wondering how many of the people around you are actually going to college anyways and you are thinking  how all these stupid people are in YOUR way. All you are really thinking about is YOUR anger and YOUR tiredness and YOUR needs...

Have you ever stopped to think  that maybe it was not them in your way, but you in theirs?

Beginning to Live

Wrote this poem last year.
Inspired by Rudyard Kipling's "If" poem.

Dedicated to all of us who think we really are living...

If you can bring yourself down

When you are high above

If you can pick yourself up

When everyone you trusted had the fault

If you can smile a real smile

When everything around makes you frown

If you can trust yourself

When everyone doubts you

If you can give respect

Without asking for any in return

If you can love yourself

With out seeing any beauty

If you can work hard

Without damaging your good mood

If you can keep yourself together

Without destroying  anyone or anything

If you can see hope

Where there is no light

If you can lend a hand

Where there is no help

If you can make others smile

When you smile

If you can love

When you have been neglected

If you can laugh where there is silence

If  you can find God

Where there is only darkness

And be able to walk

without having to drag your feet

then my love

is when you will begin to live.

For Food

I wrote this poem sometime last year.
It was inspired by a friend.

Dedicated to: All of the hard working people that do the impossible to have food in their hands for their families.



The glimpse of innocence
The eyes of truth
The bright Smile
Yet a childhood struggle

Why?
Why is it?
That a seven year old child
Has to work
That a six year old girl
And her four year old sister
Play instruments
And sing in the street
To gain
No
To earn money
To buy food
To eat

Necessity is becoming too common
The struggle is spreading further
But why?
Why?
To our children
Our Innocence
Our happiness

My ungrateful heart breaks
My knees go weak
And my selfish mind crumbles

Work is being instilled in them at such a young age
5,6,7,8
and here they are taking grown up task
caring their cross
and their crown

…to eat!
To taste! Eat! Fulfill!
Eat! Taste! Eat! Fulfill!
Taste!
For FOOD

Sucking the life out of me

How do you give hope when you are running out
and faith. What does that even mean?
What do you do when you yourself have doubt
I think you keep giving, but i'm just a teen

And when they turn to me
I look down for I have run out of words
there is nothing here to see
and that's when I approach the lord

How can I be the rock that others lean on?
How do I keep myself from  grumbling?

I search for the answers in the dark moon
but still I find the concept puzzling.


Today I ask you that you look at yourself and you ask yourself...How is my life? Do I like what I am doing? What can I do to make my life enjoyable? I find myself being very frustrated this week. Maybe it's finals week and the stress that comes with it or maybe i'm at the top of my limit. I enjoy helping others, but there are certain times when I feel like I give and all the person wants in return is more of my attention. I do not ask for anything in return, but I do wish to be given a break. I mean how do you give to someone who seems to drag you down with them, to someone who seems to suck the life out of you?

Feel free to comment to the post.
Much appreciated.

LIFE AFTER THIS BLOG POST

Today I wrote myself an e-mail that I will receive on September 20th, 2014. During this time I will most likely be starting my first few day on a college campus. I will have mixed feeling about the whole situation for sure. In my letter I told myself that I have to keep working hard, believe in myself and remember to live day-in and day-out aware of the life I am going to be living.

These are things I have to constantly remind myself to do so I decided to remind myself then. By that time I hope I have a better grip on life than I do now. That sounds kind of bizarre. How do you get a better grip on life when it seems like it is flying by?

In this letter I am basically just motivating myself to live a good life and to take time for myself.
I want to live a fulfilling life and around this time (Sep. 20th, 2014) is when I will begin the journey to become a great human being.

THE BULLYING EXPERIMENT!

This video made quite an impact on me. The amount of people that let the bullying continue astonished me. I am very surprised, but now I know why bullying is still around.
Your silence will not protect you.

Lit. analysis: Great Expectations

Check out our blog here:

I CAN READ

Yay it finally uploaded!